Thanksgiving

No. 296 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages, which can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast296

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According to Wikipedia, Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in Canada, the United States, some of the Caribbean islands, and Liberia. Similarly named festival holidays occur in Germany and Japan. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday.

Here in Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October,. Closer to typical harvest times in our country. Interestingly, the holiday is also used to celebrate Oktoberfest in parts of Canada with German heritage. That having been said, US Thanksgiving and its first cousin, Black Friday, has now been entrenched in our cultural (and shopping) fabric.

Thanksgiving conjures up three specific ideas, all of which have been in one way or another incorporated in this week’s montage – the Harvest, Family and – why not start there – “Carving the Bird” – whether literally as in a turkey dinner, or like we do today through the music of Charlie Parker.

A few selections, including Morton Gould’s tone poem “Harvest”, John Estacio’s “A Farmer’s Symphony” and the French classic “Le Crédo du Paysan” (literally, the Peasant’s or Farmer’s Creed) is a beautiful ballad, recognizing Heaven’s hand in a bountiful harvest.

Family (and “Coming Home”) are represented by a pair of short works – one by Canadian-American composer Hagood Hardy, the other a Simon and Garfunkel classic – and the inclusion of members of “The First Family of Guitar”, the Romeros plating a Vivaldi Trio Sonata.

To conclude, I chose the fourth and final movement of Ives’ Holidays Symphony. Ives started writing “Thanksgiving and Forefathers' Day” as two organ pieces, for a Thanksgiving church service.

I Think you will Love this Music too.